


Forwards

by orkestrations



Series: Gender is Hard 'verse [29]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Drama, Gay Character, Ice Skating, Logic | Logan Sanders Is A Good Friend, M/M, Nonbinary Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Nonbinary Logic | Logan Sanders, Roman and Calisto go on an ice skating date, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21577366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orkestrations/pseuds/orkestrations
Summary: Roman's life is going really well right now! Things with GenReb are still moving forwards, they're starting to get to know their stepmom, the musical they're in opens in a week, and they have a great boyfriend.But, like, what's up with Mr. O'Mara?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/OC
Series: Gender is Hard 'verse [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/938943
Comments: 25
Kudos: 69





	Forwards

**Author's Note:**

> This is the GIHV, here are the pronouns:  
> Roman, they/them  
> Logan, xe/xir  
> Virgil, they/them  
> September, she/her
> 
> Content warnings: brief mentions of death and allusions to an unhealthy/abusive/stalker ex-wife; brief mentions of racism (Calisto and his older brother are nervous about hanging around too long in an upper-middle-class white neighborhood and Roman reflects on this)

“Reilly, your dad was being _really_ weird in English class today,” Christine said, setting her tray down and carefully sticking her legs into the space between the table and the bench so that she could sit down between Roman and Katy. It was awkward to fit those long legs into such a small space, okay? Not that Roman would know.

“You’re telling _me_ ,” Reilly replied, setting his plastic spork down. “Mom got some email pretty late last night, and showed it to dad, and they like. Locked the door to their bedroom to have some sort of… I don’t know, but mom was acting pretty wigged out.”

“Wigged out how?” Katy asked. “Cause there’s, like, a lot of different ways to take ‘locked the door to their bedroom’.”

“She was like…” Reilly shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just really weird, okay? She was acting kind of like she does when she finds out dad’s ex-wife has ‘dropped by’,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “except less irritated and more unsettled.”

“Maybe his ex-wife died,” Matt suggested.

“I _wish_ ,” Elliott replied, rolling their eyes. “But if that was the case, why our mom? Why wouldn’t our dad be the first to know?”

Reilly leaned in. “Besides, I just had PE with Maven and Corvus, and they were acting like normal. If their mom _had_ just died, wouldn’t they be, I don’t know, absent? Or at least acting different? It has to be something else.”

At that moment, Logan, September, Renee, and Hollyn approached, with Fiore trailing behind them with a nervous expression on her face.

“Got room for a few more?” September asked.

The kids already at the table looked around.

“Yeah, if we all get really cuddly,” Christine replied. In response, Roman scooted closer to her, making room at the end of the bench for Logan, who nodded at them and sat down. The four girls all squished themselves in wherever they could, and in the end, everyone was brushing elbows.

“I think we need a bigger table,” Matt said.

“We can ask dad if he’ll let us in his classroom during lunch. I don’t think he’ll mind, as long as we generally ignore him and make sure to put all the desks back after we’re done,” Reilly replied.

Christine rolled her eyes. “Mr. O’Mara already puts up with enough from us in the mornings.”

“Maybe Mr. Sharp would open up the band room?” Roman suggested. Christine laughed in response.

“Mr. Sharp spends the rest of the day at the middle school after third period,” she replied. “And I like Ms. Grey, but I doubt she’d let us into the choir room.”

“So we’ll ask dad,” Reilly said. He shrugged. “I can do it tonight at dinner or something.”

Conversation died down for a few minutes as people ate until Hollyn spoke.

“Okay, so, I kind of wanted to wait to say this, but my aunt works for the newspaper and I know that the news has already kind of covered the ‘new delinquency problems’ at our school but it hasn’t gotten our side of the story and she asked me if I knew the kids who were being so truant and if I could get them in contact with her and I said I’d try. So… Do we? Want to talk to her?”

“Who’s your aunt?” Christine asked.

“Madi Turner.”

“Oh!” Reilly’s eyes widened and he leaned forward. “She’s interviewed mom before.”

“Do you trust her to be fair in how she writes about us?” Christine asked, looking at Hollyn. Hollyn looked back, and for a few moments, the stare down was intense.

“Yes,” Hollyn replied.

Christine shrugged and leaned back, glancing around the group. “Then I’m down to do it. We can post it in the Discord, see what people think, elect a couple of people for the interview.”

There were various murmurs of agreement around the table.

“On that topic,” Roman said, slapping the table with both hands. “The publicity topic! We need to have a social media presence! Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook.”

“If we’re gonna do that then we need, like, a logo and stuff,” Elliott said, holding their hands palms-up and glancing around the table.

“I… have an aunt, who’s a graphic designer,” Logan said, raising xir hand. “She actually specializes in logo design. I could at least ask her for rates.”

“Whoo! The aunts, coming through today,” Matt said, fist-pumping.

“Yeah, please do that, Logan,” Christine said. “Would anyone here be willing to help run socials? We could have a team of people.”

Renee raised her hand, and after a few moments, Fiore did too.

“Alright,” Christine nodded. “I’ll put this in the Discord, too, and I’ll ask Calisto if he’ll help. Hey, Roman, you’re going on a date with him tonight, right?”

“Er… yes?” Roman leaned back, brow furrowed. What did this have to do with anything?

She nodded. “Alright. Enjoy ice skating. He’s been excited about it all week.”

“Uh, yeah, I have been too,” Roman replied, blinking as Christine guided the conversation back on topic.

Lunch ended quickly after that and the group disbursed to go to their classes. It was Thursday, which meant it was their 1-3-5-7 block day, so Roman went to their seventh period, which was Spanish III, taught by Señora De Santiago.

As they walked, they noticed that Fiore was going in generally the same direction, so they sped up until they were walking alongside her.

“You have Spanish next, right? I think I remember you being in my class,” they said.

“Yes,” she replied. “I do. We are in the same class.”

“You just don’t talk much,” Roman said, shrugging. “Since we don’t have assigned seats, do you want to sit next to me? Vance, that’s Hollyn’s brother, has the same class as us and he’s been sitting with me recently, too.”

“I…” she trailed off and bit her lip. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Of course!” Roman replied.

The class, despite being an hour and a half long, passed quickly. Sra. De Santiago was a good teacher, giving them a couple breaks throughout the class so that they could have a couple minutes to go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, talk with friends.

“How has she _not_ gotten in trouble with admin for doing this?” Roman asked, looking around the classroom and shaking their head.

“I’m pretty sure it’s because every one of her students consistently gets A’s and B’s, even the kids who normally struggle.” Vance shrugged as he leaned back in his chair. “She’s just too good. They can’t argue with results.”

The rest of Spanish class passed quickly, leaving Roman with some time left before rehearsal. They checked their phone, which had several new messages.

The first one was from Idonea, which was in response to an earlier message they had sent before classes had started for the day. It was a simple “ _thank you, Roman. I look forward to seeing your play :)_ ”, and they nodded to themselves. Getting to know her would be… new ground, but they found themselves almost looking forward to it.

The second text was from Calisto: “ _Can’t wait for ice skating! I’ve got the hot chocolate money!_ ”. Roman responded to that with a string of different heart emojis and a lovecore reaction image.

The final texts were from Virgil, which consisted of a dog pic (yay!) and “ _looks like you’re not the only one with stepmom struggles now_ ”.

Okay, they didn’t have a whole bunch of time, but they responded with a text full of question marks (and _just_ question marks) anyways.

They didn’t get a response from Virgil before they had to be at rehearsal, so they set the message out of their mind so they could focus on their character and their performance: they were opening next week, after all.

Oh, they were not looking forward to wet tech on Sunday. Yeah, they loved theatre, but no one loved spending all day in cue-to-cue.

The whole cast was already there, dressed in sweats and comfy clothes, and were running warm-ups led by Christine by the time Mr. O’Mara arrived.

Everyone had been right: he did look… off. His hair was a mess and he looked like he had barely slept, and when he smiled, it couldn’t quite reach his eyes. Behind him, Hollyn followed, fiddling with the ends of her sleeves.

“Sorry, everyone, I’m not quite at one hundred percent right now,” he said.

“That’s okay!” Piper Dawson piped up. She finger-gunned at Mr. O’Mara. “We’ll bring two hundred percent!”

“Thanks, Piper,” he replied. “I like your energy. In other news, I found us a camera operator! Everyone, say hi to Hollyn. She’s volunteered to help us out, and she’ll just be observing rehearsal today and joining tomorrow.”

“Hi, Hollyn,” the cast chorused, some, like Roman and Christine, louder and more enthusiastically.

“Hi,” she squeaked, waving back at them.

“That’s all for right now,” Mr. O’Mara said, “back to warm-ups.”

“Alright!” Christine called, clapping twice. “We gotta finish dance warmups, come on.”

Rehearsal went well, despite Mr. O’Mara’s lack of energy. Piper, Elliott, and Kathleen Strickland, who were playing the Erinyes, had finally clicked. They had their groove and moved as three extensions of one body, and when Mr. O’Mara stopped to nitpick some blocking between them, Ivy, and Scarlett, he made sure to mention that.

Roman, for their part, loved their role. It was a little outside their normal, being less flamboyant and more serious, but. It was a rock musical adaptation of a Greek tragedy, they were still melodramatic as hell, and Katy was a fun co-star to play off of.

Calisto slid into the auditorium as Mr. O’Mara was finishing notes, and Roman left almost the instant he was done.

“Hey,” Calisto said, holding out his hand.

“Hey yourself,” Roman replied, taking his hand in theirs and reaching up on their tip-toes to kiss him. It was short and chaste, considering they were still technically on school grounds and they were also kissing in front of Roman’s whole cast.

“Ew, romance!” Matt yelled, laughter coloring his voice.

“Fff-screw you, Matt,” Roman yelled back, also laughing.

Next to them, Calisto chuckled. “Nice catch.”

“Nyeh,” Roman made a gesture with their right hand. “I don’t think Mr. O’Mara would’ve gotten me in trouble even if I hadn’t caught it.”

Calisto shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. You ready?”

“Born ready,” Roman replied, grinning as the two of them left the theatre and walked to the parking lot, where Logan was waiting, leaning against xir car with xir arms crossed.

“Thanks for giving us a ride,” Roman said.

“Of course,” Logan replied, unfolding xir arms and opening xir door. “This is one of the things friends do for each other.”

Logan took the driver’s seat and Calisto and Roman both slid into the back seat together.

“I’m still on for dinner at your place tomorrow night, right?” Roman asked, leaning forward to put their elbows on the center console.

“Yes,” Logan replied. “My parents are looking forward to seeing you again. They’re also looking forward to the musical.”

“Great!” Roman grinned, leaning back. “Are you excited? You have a _very_ full weekend ahead of you.”

Logan groaned. “I suppose I do. Why did I let you talk me into helping with tech, again?”

“Because you love me,” Roman suggested, grinning.

“Falsehood,” Logan said, voice flat.

Calisto joined in the banter after a bit. The drive to the ice rink, which was a ways out of town, took close to twenty minutes.

“You sure you have a ride home arranged?” Logan asked as xe parked to drop them off. “I don’t mind coming to pick you up.”

“Yes, we’re sure,” Calisto replied. “Thanks, though!”

“Of course,” Logan nodded as they got out. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school, Roman. It was nice meeting you, Calisto.”

“Yeah, you too!” Calisto replied. He and Roman waved at Logan as xe drove off.

The ice skating passed in a blur of colors and fun and energy until, a couple hours later, Calisto’s older brother, Tito, was picking them up.

Tito parked on the sidewalk outside Roman’s house and glanced back at Calisto and Roman.

“Kiss fast,” he said, and Calisto chuckled nervously as they both got out.

“Sure thing,” he said, holding Roman’s hand as he walked them to their door.

“Text me?” he asked, looking down at Roman with big brown eyes.

Roman smiled up at him. “Of course,” they replied, rising up on their tiptoes to meet Calisto’s kiss half-way.

The kiss only lasted a few moments longer than the one in the auditorium, and Roman savored every moment of it before Calisto had to go and they had to go inside.

Roman unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and flicked the entryway lights on as they closed the door. They could understand why Tito was nervous about them taking too long, really. This was an upper-middle-class white neighborhood, something that Tito and Calisto very much obviously _weren’t_.

They shook their head and pushed that thought to the side as they walked to the kitchen. They had to cook themselves dinner (they were _starving_ ) and Virgil had replied hours ago, so they should probably get on the whole ‘replying to them’ task.

They did that as they waited for their noodle water to boil.

_V_

_Received: 4:57 pm_

_well that is a long story. basically, it turns out that my stepmom (and the rest of my family???!!??) are fans of my writing (??!?!?!) and so she emailed me to commission a story from me for my younger sister. well i didn’t feel comfortable taking her money and commission without letting her know, so i emailed her back going ‘hey yeah i’m that stepkid of yours that you probably hate’. i haven’t gotten a response yet. although, looking back, another option i didn’t even consider was that i could’ve just. said no to the commission. been all like ‘i don’t have time’ but honestly, that never even occurred to me._

Roman’s eyebrows raised as they read the text. Yeah, that was… certainly a fairly unique situation.

_Me_

_Sent: 8:59 pm_

_Wow do you live in a drama novel or something, because that is certainly the sort of situation you might find in one!_

Roman was just draining their pasta when they got a reply.

_V_

_Received: 9:07 pm_

_i fuckin know, right? it’s crazy_

_Me_

_Sent: 9:09_

_I don’t have any pets to take pictures of but I could tell you about the date I just went on._

_V_

_Received: 9:10 pm_

_was it good?_

_Me_

_Sent: 9:10 pm_

_It was great! We went ice skating together, and he bought me hot chocolate!_

They smiled at their phone as they took a bite of their pasta. Things were… pretty good.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you enjoyed, leave a kudos, and if you're up to it, leave a comment letting me know what you thought!  
> as i was writing this installment, i realized that there is. barely any continuity. the mother's day installment takes place, chronologically, before this, yet i have set this current fic and arc in april. i guess mother's day takes place in march then lmao.  
> With love,  
> Kestrel  
> (they/them, he/him, fae/faer)


End file.
